Mr. John Blackmore, science teacher at WMS, had his students create their own rivers with lots of features and creativity in his classroom in early March.
Mr. Blackmore explained that the rivers are supposed to represent a metaphor of 8th grade students going from middle school to high school: “Every person on the planet has gotten to the city by water. That’s how it all started. Either they went sailing across the ocean, or up rivers. Rivers have been our highways—it’s supposed to be a metaphor for our 8th graders going from middle school, on a ‘highway’, to high school.”
Mr. Blackmore also demonstrated how the ocean can get polluted so easily just from debris collecting in a river stream. This was presented to his students by a big river he made himself the day after—he continuously provided water for the river that later drained into the ocean, and just a day later, it would be impossible to even see anything inside the water due to the excessive soil and sand.
He described that the huge difference between the students’ rivers and Earth’s rivers is “neglect”, which includes humans damming and polluting rivers, which disrupts ecosystems from the lack of water and/or the excessive amounts of plastic.
However, he stated that now it’s all about trying to save the environment from the burden that humans have posed to it: “We’ve just been humans—what is it to be human? To fail! [as he points to his loud classroom, showing him ‘failing’ at keeping them quiet] I fail every day! But that’s what it is to be human, that’s the human experience! Students aren’t taught not to fail, but to keep moving forward and forward, which I feel is the purpose of being a human and the way of learning and all of that combined. Now, it’s all about trying to see where to go next, after all of our mistakes and failures.”
Students also enjoyed his project: “I would definitely do it again, with maybe more challenges to change the effects caused by the water,” stated Christian Canela, 8th grade student at WMS who goes to Mr. Blackmore’s honors class. He has also stated, among many others, how it was interesting to create the river and observe the changes that happened throughout it.
Students also helped get most of the resources for the project, as stated by Mr. Blackmore: “a lot of rocks come from students traveling on vacations and coming back with these rocks.” Students later contributed to a bigger, class-wide river by adding their own boats, buildings, and rocks.
Lastly, this project was also ran by Mr. Blackmore to encourage students to research rivers and how they contribute to the world, and how we gain all of the “life experience, stories, math, and science”.
Overall, this project has helped students have some fun and have a better understanding of the world around them, and raise awareness for the neglected river systems we have today.
